Summary
This publication contains data taken from the Adult Social Care Finance Return (ASC-FR) and Short and Long Term (SALT) collection to provide information regarding adult social care activity and finance on local authorities in England for 2019-20.
This is the sixth year of the SALT and ASC-FR collections, and the fourth year in which the adult social care activity and finance data have been brought together in an official statistics report.
This report contains aggregate information submitted by 151 Councils with Adult Social Services Responsibilities (CASSRs) in England, to provide insight into adult social care activity and expenditure for the period 1 April 2019 to 31 March 2020.
Due to COVID-19 and the extra pressures felt by local authorities, collection deadlines were extended; for SALT and ASC-FR, this was by an additional month. A number of local authorities have also advised that it was not possible to quality assure data to the same extent as in previous years. Further detail is available in our data quality outputs however it is important to consider this when reviewing this year’s data and changes over time.
In previous years there were 152 local authorities. However, on the 1st April 2019 Bournemouth and Poole merged to form the new Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole (BCP) local authority. The inclusion of Christchurch has also reduced the size of the Dorset local authority. Therefore, care should be taken when making comparisons over time for Dorset due to such changes; when considering any changes at local authority level in this publication, these have been done on a like for like basis, excluding these two authorities.
Gross current expenditure
Gross current expenditure on adult social care by local authorities was £19.7 billion. This represents an increase of £918 million from the previous year, a 4.9% increase in cash terms and a 2.4% increase in real terms.
Expenditure on long term support
The area of care which saw the largest increase in expenditure was long term support, which increased by £748 million to £15.4 billion in 2019-20, an increase in cash terms of 5.1%.
Overall, the number of clients receiving long term care has decreased each year since 2015-16, to 838,530 in 2019-20. This has been mainly driven by a decrease in clients aged 65 and over receiving long term care, down 39,045 to 548,450 since 2015-16.
1.9 million requests for adult social care support from 1.4 million new clients, for which an outcome was determined in the year, were received by local authorities in 2019-20. This is equivalent to 5,290 requests for support received per day by local authorities.
The average cost of residential care for a person aged 65 and over rose from £636 per week in 2018-19 to £662 per week in 2019-20, while the average cost of nursing care for the same age band increased from £678 per week in 2018-19 to £715 per week in 2019-20.
Last edited: 25 November 2022 2:10 pm
